Unconventional Currency
by whileimhere10
Summary: Piper's time in SHU leads both her and Alex closer to their truer selves and each other. Definitely for the Vauseman fan in all of you.
1. Chapter 1

**Set during F*cksgiving. I found myself overwhelmed with pride when Piper stood up for herself. I thought I would try to capture it. Nothing explicit, but a few F bombs dropped. I would love feedback!**

* * *

Fuck that was stupid. Stupid fucking stupid. Healy's footsteps were drowned out by shouts and screams, but I know that they would have echoed down that hallway. I know his boots clicked on the cement like a fucking tap chorus of tea partiers. Fuck fuck fuck. I rubbed my head against the wall. I would bet money that every centimeter of this room has been soaked in urine at some point in time, but it wasn't worth moving. I used to play a game on the street. I would ask Larry if he thought someone had ever peed right where we were standing. I'm pretty sure that something has pissed on the entire Earth's surface many times over. Ant piss, whale piss, human piss. I think it made him uncomfortable. Then I would ask him if he thought anyone had fucked right where we were standing. He liked that one. It was so fucking simple with him.

Despite its lack of décor, the SHU cell's minimalism was anything but simple. If I had known about my time here when I was on the outside, I would have imagined that this would have been the part of the story where I got really ripped. I reflected on that day at the beach. What was I thinking? Did I really believe that I could use this time like a vacation? Like a fucking montage where I read and exercised and educated other, less fortunate women? The chilly chrome toilet seemed to think otherwise. I didn't want to hold it. I tried to position my mouth as far above the water as possible without the risk of splatter. Unfortunately, panic-induced vomiting precludes most rational thought, and my arms drew around the appliance as I dry heaved. This could have been your fitness montage, Chapman. This could have been your Rocky. You ignorant fuck. This is clearly the part where you come face to face with the wolf prowling inside your lonely, selfish soul. I don't know what was more disconcerting, my fear of what coated the back of the toilet or the realization, when my fingers clutched it, that all traces of my cell's former hostage had been wiped away and the surface was as aseptic as a fork dropped on a clean floor- outwardly spotless, but nothing you'd want to get too personal with. My stomach couldn't manage the lift to get anything all the way out of my throat, and so I retired to the concrete to think about better days.

_Alex and I were standing on the tip of the world. Black sand crumbled where I stepped. There were monkeys howling in the background and the beach was patrolled by guards with machetes. For someone used to vacationing in well-stocked cabins, it was unreal. I was drunk on rum and she was staring at the un-fractured sky. "Hey Alex" She swung her head towards me. "Do you think anyone has peed right here in this very spot?"_

_She smiled, "The real question" she said with that off kilter intonation, "is if anyone has fucked right here in this very spot." I felt myself float into her arms "Which one would you like to make sure of?"_

_"I really have to pee" I whispered guiltily._

_She scoffed and leaned in. I miss how we both smiled when we kissed. It was like our teeth kissed too._

Another thing I wish I had thought of when I was a free person was the emotion that being alone with yourself conjures. I spent hundreds of dollars in yoga classes attempting to connect with the parts of myself that crave cultivation. As soon as I had the money, I had wanted to go on a retreat in the woods in order to gain spiritual clarity. I think that the only differences between meditating underneath a pine tree and trying to escape the relentless scent of pine sol are the speed and depth of self-actualization. That outburst would probably have taken me years of coaching to express, although I would argue that fifteen months of your life is actually more expensive in the long run than thousands of dollars of gentle prodding and talk therapy. I actually like the thought of paying for services with time. It seems old fashioned and severe, which is a pretty accurate description of the prison system. It's almost comforting to know that for the low price of a month of my life, I could become tough. It was like paying with a first born child or a daughter's hand in marriage. Unconventional currency for important life lessons. The voice in the wall reached out to me with an eerie hello. We talked like caged birds cawing across the room, sharing the pain of watching flight through the window. As we talked, my heart sank. My panic began again, and with panic came the cool embrace of the toilet.

_Everything was clean. Our bungalow was open to the world, but there were no insects. I sat in the doorway and hugged my knees to my chest, admiring the way that tropical places can move so slowly when the waves are calm and the sand is settled. It didn't feel like we were doing anything wrong here. I pretended that Alex was only selling drugs because she had no other options. I pretended that the only buyers were bored millionaires who got high in secret chambers with their many elite guests. She sat down next to me and began peeling a mango with a deboning knife. Her deftness skewered my illusions._

_"Have you ever considered a real job?"_

_"Why? So I could save money my whole life to make this view a reality when I'm 80?" she tossed the peel to a scuttling crab. "No thanks. Do you think waiting tables is a real job?"_

_I was silent, my feelings hurt._

_She continued, "If you thought a real job was so amazing, why are you here and not working?" She tried to feed me a piece of sweet, slippery fruit._

_I pushed her away. "Ok Alex, I'm a hypocrite. I get it."_

_She dangled the mango I rejected over her mouth for a second before dropping it in and chewing. "Not a hypocrite, babe. You just like to take the easy road. I do too." She gestured out into the water with the knife, squinting over the thin blade, eyes dusted with last night's make-up. "I can guarantee you that the man in that boat is working harder today than you and I ever will in our lifetimes and all he'll get for it is leathery skin and five or six kids. Maybe a hook in the eye if he's really unlucky. All I have to do is move around some intoxicants and reap the rewards."_

_I watched the little dinghy she had singled out bobbing in deep water. "I think he's very brave" I said, "to work in the ocean like he does."_

_"We all have occupational hazards" she replied with a studied nonchalance._

_"What's mine, seeing as how I have no occupation…"_

_Taking pity on my self-pity, she wound a sticky hand around my shoulder and pulled me close. "You're my other half, Pipes. My hazards are your hazards."_

_"But that doesn't make me brave."_

_"Not all of us are cut out to be brave. You're kind and hot and smart. Those are more important."_

The chill from the floor was becoming a numbness when it occurred to me. The voice in the vent had laid my options out. I had to break. I had to break one way or another, either by acquiescing or by losing my mind. That's what fucked me. It wasn't my outburst. It wasn't me. It was the idea of failure; it was the precedent of losing. I closed my eyes and imagined that I was watching myself. I imagined watching myself lose it on Healy. I imagined that it was Nichols saying those words instead and I smiled. I imagined it was Alex and I felt a hum in my body. I let my mind fill in the details. She was flushed and gravelly. Her mouth was close enough to the glass to steam. "We go for tall, _hot_ girls," she growled, "and we fucking _love_ it." He slammed the window shut and I imagined her sauntering over to the bed and brewing her anger like a cup of strong coffee. It was a roiling black cloud, and deep within it, I saw her desire. I saw myself. I have never felt pride with a capitol P before, and now, I felt it in the desperate, community-forming way that grows under real oppression. This wasn't disobeying a family expectation or buying two Vera Wang wedding dresses. I felt a riotous appreciation for the lives of all the women who had made my hard choices relatively easy. Outside, I put a bumper sticker on my car. Now I was here. Now I had to be brave.

I closed my eyes and stoked the fire of my resolve. I had to grow stronger while looking like I had been broken. I breathed deeply as I focused on my goal. Somewhere in the forgotten icebergs of my subconscious, a memory broke free and floated towards my waking mind. I saw Alex and I in bed together. Our foreheads were pressed close and I was speaking softly. Her lips touched mine and her inscrutable eyes were momentarily unguarded. I don't know what we were talking about. I know that there were tears on her cheeks and she got up angrily and walked naked into the next room. Her body was sumptuously inked and curved. I loved it like I loved a landscape that was fiercer and more full of mystery than I will ever be. I missed her body. I missed the softness of hips and thighs and heavy eyelids. It was that memory that bore me through the unknown hours, a fantasy and a rebellion and a release of joie de vivre that led me to know a more dangerous, truer self. Without days or nights, the fluorescent lights tried to sap my resolve, but even as I sweated and froze and became grimy from the debris of solitary, I teased myself with the image of Alex in the doorway, black hair heavy around her shoulders, cheekbones catching the dim glow of morning.

She told me later, after I had coveted her, possessed her, that I had only been gone for 48 hours. I felt my boldness fading, and before a knowing smile could thin her lips and our old dynamic re-emerged, I rallied and grabbed her chin in my hand, forcing her to look into my eyes. The chapel buzzed with background electricity, the rough scrape of our uniforms as we lay entangled and half-dressed. I didn't have the words to tell her that she had been the catalyst for my sanity, and frankly, I didn't think she would use that information kindly. I simply attempted to pour my experience into her with rough kindness as she regained fluency in the usual, bone-shuddering language she used to reduce me to pure reaction. In thirty seconds, I was moaning her name and she was a hot July night that left me sweating and sleepless. However, as I broke, as I acquiesced, I could feel something new in my breast. As her hands melted my body, a silver seed convulsed in me and sprouted. _You are brave_, it said. _Now you are brave._ I held its message in a small smile against her neck. I held it as we exited the chapel and went our separate ways. Small as it is, I felt its presence all the way to my bed, where I promptly lay down and fell asleep, content knowing that even if I felt despair, I had not wasted my stay.


	2. Torture

Thank you so much to everyone who has read and reviewed and enjoyed this story! I wasn't planning on doing a continuation, but I stumbled across some historical information one night and it it just made the plot bunnies jump. There will be a third (sexy) chapter if all goes well. Your reviews are lovely and I appreciate them so much. Thank you and enjoy!

* * *

Alex tried to remember that there were worse times to be imprisoned. To remind herself of this, she Googled the most barbaric Medieval torture devices and forced herself to look at each one. When compared to the breast ripper or the rack, even to the charmingly named cat's paw, Litchfield was a paradise. Her interest led her to an hour long investigation into the living conditions of the average peasant in the 11th century. Eventually, Taystee and Poussey glanced over her shoulder with synchronized curiosity.

"Girl, look at that. If that's what they did to white people, imagine what would have happened to us African devils."

Taystee responded with her usual theatrics, " Wicked Moor! Get thee and thy spectacular posterior into the head crusher. Thou hast filled the minds of the king's army with sinful thoughts and witchery!"

Poussey clasped her hands. " Oh good sir, thou knowest well that once the mind has travelled to Nubia, it cannot again return! Do not hold this truth against me!"

"'Tis a truth as old as time, dusky lady. I too have fallen under your spell"

They giggled and walked off. Poussey patted Alex on her shoulder affectionately. She smelled faintly like cologne, and the gesture of solidarity made her feel a little less alone. She returned to browsing and made a mental list of all the things that were worse than solitary confinement: bubonic plague, impaling poles, mutilation, a lack of fresh water, becoming a man's legal property. Piper may be alone, but she wasn't exposed to the elements. She may be alone, but she wasn't being slowly sawed in half. Rising, Alex walked towards the exit, only to see Mendez slap a piece of chocolate out of Taystee's hand and onto the floor. He used his heel to grind it into the carpet. Taystee's head was inclined toward the ground, her bouncy curls falling forward as she attempted to repel the humiliation. Poussey seemed to draw into herself, power and anger flashing through her body like lightning.

"No food in the library, inmate. It's not really a place for chocolate." He emphasized the last word, flicking her hair with his fingertips.

Poussey balled up her fists and Mendez glanced in her direction "Go ahead and fight me, Pussy. No matter how much you look like a man, you'll never really be able to do what I can do." He thrust his hips in Taystee's direction and walked off, the chocolate resting in a crumbly pile. Taystee looked up and composed herself, eyes glistening. Poussey deflated slightly, watching as he exited with a swagger.

Poussey glanced at Taystee. They smiled tightly at each other and fell into a close embrace, drawing strength wordlessly. Alex suddenly felt like she was spying and she backed down the aisle quietly. Violence was traumatizing, but so was witnessing violence, and it could take so many forms. She remembered a quote by Mark Twain:_ Nothing that grieves us can be called little: by the eternal laws of proportion a child's loss of a doll and a king's loss of a crown are events of the same size._ She drew a shaky breath and felt grief rise up from her stomach and saturate her eyeballs until they leaked. She felt the grief she had just witnessed and the grief she imagined deep in the labyrinth of SHU. She couldn't feel her own, though. It splashed around in a tightly stopped bottle in her gut. It roiled and strained to free itself, but she used the tears she shed for her friends to push the cork in tighter. That sadness could only be taken a drop at a time.

That night, Alex meditated on her recovery. Intellectually, she knew that as a provider of drugs, she was integral to the misery of her clients just as she had been integral to her own suffering. Her ego, however, repeated its perpetual mantras: _You never would have used if she hadn't left you. You could have gotten away with it. You won't let your emotions interfere next time. _ She dabbled in that line of thinking briefly, and it took her to a place where Piper's time in solitary was exactly what she deserved. It was a cold place where she stood a head higher than everyone in Litchfield. She wasn't like these women. She was an industrialist, a capitalist. She was only here due to sloppiness caused by heartbreak. _Listen to me_ the ego said, _Next time, don't look for a girlfriend. Look for a bitch. Look for someone with a great body who you can show a good time and not let into your head. _

With practiced patience, Alex disengaged from the voice and gave it a thorough examination. It sounded an awful lot like all the men she had known as a girl, the ones she had mistakenly looked to when she first realized that she was attracted to women. It sounded like her father.

* * *

Alex, seventeen, sat at the bar before it opened. Josh the bartender was feeding her drinks and she didn't care that he wanted to fuck her. _What about her tits_? Josh was asking, _If she's got great tits, you need to make your move tonight._

Full of bravado and Jameson, Alex gestured to indicate her approval. _They're good, you know. They're…perky._

_Perky? _He slapped the bar and laughed _Fuck, Vause, never say that to a girl, ok? That's what middle aged women say when they talk about teenagers. You don't want to sound like a damn Wonderbra commercial do you?_

_No._

_Then don't tell her they're perky._

_I wasn't planning on telling her anything about her tits._ The word felt dirty, but she liked the thrill of the staccato syllables. She didn't tell him that she already knew a lot about Laura's tits and that those few moments alone in the girls bathroom, afternoon sunlight skimming pale skin, had been the softest and most sensual of her life.

_You know, Vause, Laura's not the only one with nice tits around here._ Josh pushed another shot her way and she accepted and laughed it off. As the liquid screeched down her throat, she felt bad about herself and didn't know why. She teetered to the bathroom and double checked the lock. The little voice that remained vigilant even in the wooziest binges never led her astray, and Josh's quiet, repeated attempts to open the door sobered her up almost instantaneously. Those insistent scratchings lit the long fuse that ended years later in a grimy green room. Any discussion of her tits after that point was not tolerated unless you were a beautiful woman.

* * *

Sighing into the perpetual fluorescence, Alex pulled her blanket up and tried to get comfortable on the hard frame, wondering where Pennsatucky could have stashed something as large as a mattress. As she had on so many lonely nights, she imagined that the pressure of the blanket was the soft contact of Piper's body. She felt the gulf between her emotions and her own body narrow slightly and fell asleep with a stony frown that bordered on a grimace.


End file.
